Blogger Plants Jobs Health Rumor, Apple Stock Tanks

Mm, serendipity: we were just talking about schadenfreude over the fate of our corporate masters, and here we find some blogger briefly caused Apple's stock to drop more than five points by "reporting" that Steve Jobs went to the hospital with "chest pains," according to the New York Times.

The report appeared at CNN's "iReport" section, which proclaims, "You won't believe what people are uploading." Well, not after this we won't, anyway.

The story has been pulled and refuted, but now that we think of it we're not sure how credible we find the refutation, either.

The Times reports that Jobs "has repeatedly said he is cancer-free" after his pancreatic cancer operation four years ago, but has "had some side effects from his treatment related to nutrition." This suggests an alternative-therapy regimen to us, as does the Times' picture of Jobs, which we at first thought was a still of Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire.

Outside of an ordinary Christian concern, we're not interested in Jobs' health, but find it fascinating that this citizen journalist got so much traction out of it. In the political world, as we have seen, bloggers have benefitted from the untrustworthiness of politicians, planting memes 'n' themes that are widely believed because the people they oppose are widely disbelieved. It seems "citizen journalists" are most effective when no one knows what to believe -- just like common street-corner gossips (except, thanks to the internet, they no longer have to physically visit street-corners).

On to more important things, like that Led Zep reunion which is totally on.

photo via capitan giona (cc)